Cons:

- The interface is not great, requiring excessive clicks. Some information is missing (not for a gameplay reason), or displayed in awkward or unintuitive ways.

- The terrorism mechanic: piss off a faction too much (almost unavoidable) and your avatar may get shot. This is RNG ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that straight up ends your playthrough, and it's at odds with how realistic the game otherwise is (very few IRL first-world leaders are assassinated).

- The game unrealistically forces you to do MUCH better than status quo if you want to be in the running for a second term, since your popularity starts at 0. It's a mystery how you got elected in the first place.

Pros:

- Challenging, yet fair.

- Gives a unique insight in the real-life struggles of politicians. The game give you an unrealistic amount of power and clear data, and yet within one playthrough I found myself compromising on my egalitarian and ecological ideals for the sake of just keeping the economy on a vaguely upwards trend. Often you'll have to choose between effective policies and popular-but-actually-terrible ones, or sacrifice long-term benefits for short-term boosts. Spending more money to make things better (and to make everyone love you) is very easy, but FINDING money to spend is so much harder (and pisses everyone off).

This is honestly my #1 reason for recommending this game. It's all things that I knew on an intellectual level, but being actually put in the politician's shoes was eye-opening.

- Similarly, the way your decisions trickle down in deep and sometimes unexpected way is instructive (and fun).

Fire some useless government employees, and now your unemployed population is larger, which feeds into crime and housing issues. Raise the tax on tobbacco, and the poor addicts that won't quit will be even poorer, which affects the amount of money they can spend on other things. Lower employee benefits too much to try and revitalize your economy, and you might have a strike on your hands, which will make your economy tank, which will worsen your worker conditions even more, which will make THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ IDIOTS EVEN MORE WILLING TO GO ON STRIKE until you bitterly admit defeat and spend a ton on a stimulus package, which causes deficit, which worries the financial institutions into raising your interest rate, which you pay for by raising taxes, which creates a black market, which raises crime... On and on it goes.

Some things, like crime and GDP, are insanely important yet impossible to affect directly. You have to rely on 2nd-, 3rd-, or even or 4th-order effects. Realistic and insightful. (Even where the simulation is unrealistic, the insight that every policy has countless indirect consequences is valid.)

- Quick playthroughs. You can get through a term in half an hour or so. As for a whole campaign... Well, I'll tell you if I ever manage to get re-elected.


Overall, a solid recommend for me, if you can handle sub-par interfaces. Of note: the game is frequently on sale, including special one-day sales (I got my discounted copy the day of the US presidential election). Wait for it, the game's not going anywhere.